If You Build It (With Union Labor) They Will Give

Why are governments still spending taxpayer money on non-essential building?

It’s a cycle that we start here:

1) Resolution 2014-408 adopted on May 8, 2014 by the Union County freeholders “establishing and adopting a responsible contractor policy” which is later defined as pro-union as you can see from this video where Gary Pfarr of Local 102 thanks the board:
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2) With that pro-union policy in place the county sets to building project after project.

3) The Local 102 Political Action Committee makes massive political donations including to county bosses Gerald Green and Raymond Lesniak.

Are these multimillion dollar projects truly necessary right now?

For the unions and the politicians – definitely.

For the taxpayers – who cares?

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6 responses to this post.

I listened to the video and nothing that Gary Pfarr of Local 102 said seemed to be inappropriate. In fact, strict bonding & permitting requirements, no default on prior contracts and the apprenticeship program are good things.

The BAD thing not mentioned but likely in place via THIS law (or others) is a requirement to pay “prevailing wages” defined as “Union Scale”.

“Union Scale” is often far in excess of the wages legal, licensed, bonded, and well-qualified non-Union workers and subcontractors demand. While a Private Firm should have more leeway to choose Union or not, it’s THEIR money, there is simply no justification for TAXPAYERS to be FORCED to unnecessarily overpay on government-sponsored projects via a REQUIREMENT to pay “Union Scale” wages.

Requiring “Union Scale” wages on Public Sector (taxpayers paid-for) construction projects is no different than the ROUTINE practice (EVERYWHERE) of providing Public Sector pensions & benefits FAR FAR greater than necessary (to attract and retain a qualified workforce), sustainable for a cost standpoint, or “fair” to taxpayers who typically pay for 80-90% of total Plan costs.

And for Taxpayers who still aren’t quite sure of the extend of the financial “mugging” being perpetrated upon them, we keep hearing of more and more examples of the outrageous deals our bought-off politicians grant Public Sector workers in exchange for Union campaign contributions.

Here is a sample from today’s news ….. the safety workers in Lowell MA evidently get credit for (up to 5) “service years” while they wait on a list to be hired. Where does this govt-approved THEFT of Private Sector wealth end ?

Private Sector Taxpayers should simply refuse to fund any pensions greater in value at retirement (factoring in BOTH the pension formulas AND the generous “provisions” such as COLA increases and very young full retirement ages) than what THEY get in retirement benefits from their employers.

JB1, I had posted this on your union county watchdog site, and might as well post it here as it shares some information from experience:

You have hit the nail on the head JB1, the politicians motivation to build projects using union labor is the political donations as quid pro quo. Allowing unions to donate is just as bad as the citizens united decision.

The prevailing wage rates are indeed the same as the construction union labor rates. This is of course the most expensive labor in our local areas. The upside is that it gives the labor unions equal footing labor cost wise, while allowing the non-union companies and the union companies to compete for the same projects. The non-union companies have to use the labor rates. Collateral upside is that the non-union workers then make good money.

One example of downside is that Union County govt put in place for any project over $5 million automatically has to have union labor. (called PLA). This then precludes the non-union companies, limiting competition. This PLA makes every project around 7-15% more expensive based on union jurisdictional mandates. I had done some discussing on the prevailing wage rate situation on my TREEblog in 2012, the link is below. Its actually one of the more visited pages by outsiders to my blog. And instituting the PLA by UC govt or any other govt is good reason for the unions to continue to donate to keep the politicians in power. Where are the taxpayers priority in this.

A suggestion should be made to the NJ legislature to tweak the prevailing wage rates, to maybe 10% below the local union labor rates only because in good times or bad this is guaranteed construction work generating from the government and paying for the highest cost labor comes from the taxpayers pockets while they are impacted by the recession. We taxpayers simply should not foot the bill for the most expensive construction labor. The unions should sign onto that out of concern that the burdened taxpayers are covering the unions paychecks.

No resolution on the agenda but several Roselle residents came out tonight against the Mind & Body Complex. By order of appearance or, as you will see in the second video, disappearance: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .